Silent Sister 75-watt 1x12" Isolation Cabinet - Black Review

The Best ISO Cab Solution.

Small stages and the use of IEM's really requires keeping guitar amp levels under control. Did a ton of research on ISO cabs from low cost models to high end custom units used for pro touring. Even tried a DIY approach with a 1x12 cab in large padded road cases with some venting. The results were never great - always sounding hollow and just weird compared to a traditional mic in… read more front of a cabinet. Listening to the videos from Paul Rivera about the design made sense and because I know they make great products, I saved up and finally purchased the Silent Sister (empty) loading it myself with the Eminence Cannabis Rex. Long story long, it just works! I did extend one of the mic goose necks with an Atlas LO-2B just to get the 2nd mic exactly where I wanted it. Also labeled the inputs for convenience. Build quality is solid and they used real Neutrix connectors and Penn Elcom plates. Have used it extensively for recording over the last couple months with different microphone combinations and I am extremely happy with the results. In studio, the isolation is not that critical of course, but the convenience of having the cab near the control room and knowing you are going to get consistent results with the mics in place via that controlled environment is a good thing. As others have said, it's of course not completely silent by any means, but it provides more than enough attenuation for my needs.

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Perfect Pro Solution!

I've been touring for more then a years with this cab and it's very nice. I play 7 shows a week in a studio setup and the band leader has an open talkback mic all trough the show. Now I can crank up my badger 30 real loud and none of it will spill on the band leader's talkback or the vocals.It's not 100% silent. It cut about 30db wich is more than enough for me because I still want… read more to feel some vibrations when I play so know that it will still produce sound and vibrations. It's very well built and sounds great! I've tried many other solutions out there including building my own amp box and the SilentSister is definitly the pro solution. I've tried to block the pressure relief hole to see how it would sound and there's no doubt now that it's what makes Rivera's Iso Cab sound better than all the others. It does not sound boxy at all. For recording, this is also fantastic because for all of you guitar players out there who are making home recordings well you won't have to worry about a car driving by or the air conditioning getting picked up by the mic or anything else you can think of. Mine is loaded with a Celestion G12H and sounds great and I'm even thinking getting a second one with the new Celestion Creambacks to do some real nice stereo effects!

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Quieter Sister...

While Rivera has definitely come up with an iso-cab that sounds great internally, the fact is that this cab is anything but "silent." Making this cab with the "pressure relieved" feature was a big trade-off - internal sound quality versus effective isolation. It does bring down the volume significantly, but not enough for my situation, which is a home studio in the basement of a… read more town-house, being only 14' wide with neighbors on both sides. The volume from this cab when driven by a Hiwatt 100 watt head is still way too much for this space, and the low-end that radiates out of this thing like nuclear fallout, even with my two lower watt amps (6 and 15 watts), and is the kind that goes right through walls and floors like a hot knife through butter. I also think the volume that emanates from it might even be too much for a live stage, it you're looking for genuine isolation. A situation where you can put the cab in a back room some where, and you're not surrounded by neighbors, might work out fine as is. For my part, I built a multi-layered iso-box to put the Silent Sister into, and then, and only then, after several hundred dollars more and 3 solid weeks of hard work later, it's actually quiet enough to use in my space. Until someone comes up with a lightweight substance that can both absorb and stop sound vibrations (and this may not be till the Star Trek era...), there's no way a box this small and lightweight can actually isolate to the degree they claim. As the experts say, true sound proofing only comes from mass, mass, and more mass, and this cab does not have enough mass for true sound proofing. That said, the miked sound in the monitors is great, not just passable or pretty good, and far better than any other iso-cab on the market, which is why I opted to keep this cab and make it work.

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Quieter than my real sister

Playinng loud hard metal through this thing is a dream! While you can still hear it a bit, it sounds like it's a block away. My girlfriend can read in the same room while I shred my brains out! Excellent Celestion speaker and I have a Royer Ribbon and SM57 perfectly positioned inside that make the sound massive. Incredible construction too. This changed my life and improved… read more my guitar sound.

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